Life III: A Lesson from Star Wars and Donnie Darko

I am a little behind on my movie watching. I do a lot of renting. Movies are today's prose--today's poetry. At least the good ones are. While generations ago we used to read it now we tend to watch it. Movies are our Dostoevskys. They are our cultural prophets.

On the back of my Donnie Darko DVD case a Los Angeles Times reporter states of the movie that it is "one of the key American films of the decade." This might be true if only I understood half of it. I know this: I need to watch or read Watership Down again to discover any implication it may have in its obvious connection to Donnie Darko (check out the web site). Twenty years after Watership Down scared me as a child it has come back to haunt me again--only this time with a sense of awakening.

I digress before I even begin. I did not start this post to talk about the rabbit (Frank) of Donnie Darko or the rabbits of Watership Down. I wanted to point out a connection that I noticed between Star Wars III and Donnie Darko. I believe that the message contained there is a prophetic commentary on our current American culture. In particular the media and the Christian church may want to pay close attention.

I have trouble moving from one media exposure to another without taking time to interpret what I have seen. I did not have to make a point to stop and reflect this time. Reflection grabbed me like I imagine a heart attack would. There was little I could do about it. It started when I was sitting in the cheap theater watching Star Wars III and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan, acting prophetically in the movie, stated that those who speak in absolutes are influenced by the Dark Side of the Force. Wow. Now that is a counter cultural statement for America's media and for its Christian church.

The Christian church has made a point of depending upon absolute statements about life and God to maintain authority in the world. Who would have guessed that this is from the Dark Side--that is if we give Obi-Wan a voice in the church. I think we should. Contrastingly, many believers rely upon their knowledge of 'absolutes' to give them a firm foundation for their faith and Christian practice. Consequently, many crisis of faith are crisis of what we once held as absolute.

Could Obi-Wan be offering a futuristic warning in the same strain of the historic warning to the Corinthians? "...we know that 'all of us possess knowledge.' This 'knowledge' puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God" (I Cor. 8-1-3). I can almost imagine Yoda speaking those words.

Now obviously it is important to pursue knowledge...but what kind of knowledge? the absolute kind? the polarizing kind? The media like to polarize issues as much as anybody does. In fact, that is how you create an issue--you polarize it, you make it into extremes, you speak in absolutes. How many times have I been frustrated by questions and issues that appear to only have absolute answers. Am I for abortion or against it? Am I for the war or against it? Am I a Democrate or a Republican. It is not that simple. Watch the news and see how simply the media frames issues. Just about every issue has two sides as if it were only two dimensional.

Donnie Darko sat through a classroom session where his teacher made them watch a video about the power of fear to inhibit love. After the video was done she drew on the chalk board a straight line with 'Fear' written on the left side and 'Love' written on the right side. She explained that in any situation we are being motivated by one and the other. The goal is to free ourselves from the power of fear so that we may operate out of the freedom of love. To help the students see this reality she had them read a hypothetical situation and place an X on the continuum connecting fear and love based upon which motivational combination was compelling the hypothetical characters. Donnie Darko refused--and got angry.

He argued that life was not that simple. This two-dimensional diagram left no room for any other influential factors in the hypothetical situation. It overlooked the complexities found in real world scenarios. It boiled all of our emotions and motivations down to two categories. This was outrageous for Donnie Darko.

I will grant the teacher (and our churches and the media) that it helps to polarize issues for the sake of the learning environment--it makes teaching easier. However, it also teaches a simplistic and absolute view of the world. Overcome fear for love. I think that I have friends who have seen this video by Donnie Darko's teacher. This is not a bad principle I guess. But that is all that it is. It is a generality, not an absolute.

Maybe we are accustomed to speaking with such absolute, 'blanket', statements because it gives us a little more influence, respect, control and power--reflections of the Dark Side of the Force. Maybe the truth contains too many complexities for us that we feel as if we must speak in generalizations disguised as absolutes?

It could be that Obi-Wan and Darko are saying that it is time for us to deal with life's complexities. Maybe then faith and trust will take on new meanings.